Chapter 869 Too Late
Sylas landed on his feet. By the time he had, Vorthyx had also flipped back to his.
The two only looked at one another for a brief instant before they burst forward once again.
Sylas could feel that Vorthyx had activated his own Comprehension just now to keep up. The flow of water in his body right now wasn't normal.
But what truly shocked Sylas was that Comprehensions shouldn't be able to do this. Or, more accurately, they shouldn't have been able to do much more than just improve a stat or two, while their auxiliary abilities were quite unrefined.
With Vorthyx, though, while Sylas couldn't feel which one of his stats had exactly gone up, he felt the unique ability of the Comprehension almost too intimately.
'It must be Constitution, maybe Dexterity as well. But that's hardly important when hitting him feels like working against a bag of water that can absorb and then repel anything…'
Sylas had several powerful Comprehensions, each one at a high Mastery. Even his most recent one, Glassvolt, was already at Legendary Mastery thanks to his "cheat."
It took him months to raise Madness to Legendary, but not even a day to raise Glassvolt to the same level thanks to the Glassinox and his Legendary Profession.
And yet, he somehow still felt inferior to Vorthyx in this respect.
That led him to two conclusions.
First, he was correct in that the secret to Comprehensions wasn't in increasing their boost to stats, but rather in tapping into their unique abilities.
And second… the Clypsians knew many things that he did not.
Well, there was also a third thing.
He knew exactly how to beat Vorthyx.
Sylas closed the distance, his hand reaching out in a violent clawing motion.
Vorthyx seemed to have realized this. The weakness of his Comprehension was, indeed, puncture wounds. Or so it seemed.
He had methods to deal with this as well.
If he didn't, wouldn't it be too ridiculous? After all, how many people purely used their fists and legs like Sylas did? Most people used weapons with a blade of some sort. If his Comprehension was only useful against the likes of Sylas, then he might as well just put his head on a chopping board right here and now.
However, despite the sneer in his heart, his expression didn't change in the slightest. His handsome, blue countenance reflected the very same indifference as he reached out to meet Sylas' claw.
[Vortex Capture].
A strong suction force suddenly came from Sylas' claw that caught Vorthyx off guard.
Though he was surprised, his feet tipped off balance, he was still quite quick to react. Rather than fighting against the suction, his calf quickly flexed, his body shooting forward even faster than before. At the same time, his own claw shifted, becoming an elbow that allowed him more room to accelerate.
He aimed for the flex of Sylas' fingers, looking to smash his fragile digits into minced meat.
But Sylas sidestepped. He had already been shifting the moment he cast [Vortex Capture]. He didn't have much experience with the grappling technique, as he simply didn't have time. But what he did have was a nearly 10x boost to his Aether thanks to suddenly swapping to his Glassvolt Comprehension, and a lot of energy to pump into a strong pull forward.
He swept a leg at Vorthyx's ankle as though to trip him, and this time, he succeeded.
Vorthyx found the world spinning around him, his head slamming toward the ground with great force.
However, both men knew that this wouldn't harm him much, especially not when the soil had practically turned to mush with all the Water Aether Vorthyx was pumping into the area.
This wasn't lost on Sylas in the slightest. He knew that the man was trying to prepare something.
Unfortunately, he would never get the chance.
Sylas' telekinesis wrapped around him, and a pair of red-gold wings appeared on his back. He accelerated so fast that Vorthyx almost lost track of him.
The Clypsian felt the pain long before he realized exactly where Sylas had appeared.
A knee, right to the gut.
Vorthyx's Comprehension rippled again, dispersing the power in all directions. But because he wasn't on the ground any longer and couldn't orient himself to face Sylas, he couldn't disperse it entirely and was forced to eat much of the power himself.
He shot high into the air, the power of Sylas' knee sending him flying.
Vorthyx's pupils constricted, and he immediately spun to face the skies, sending out the strongest fist he could.
He was right to do so. Sylas had appeared high above him, sending down an axe kick from hell. Vorthyx knew his arm alone wouldn't be enough to counter this, but he just couldn't generate power from his legs right now.
And his arm suffered for it.
The sickening crack of the attacks meeting made him wince. He knew that his bones were fine—his Constitution was too high to give way to this attack alone. But the slap of stone against stone made him realize that Sylas knew exactly what he was doing right now.
He was forcing him to take on more and more of these attacks head-on.
But now, he was headed back down to the ground even faster than he had been sent into the air. This would be his chance.
A jolt suddenly ran through Vorthyx's body, and he froze for the briefest instant of time.
That hesitation, even though he shook it off quickly as he jetted the Lightning Aether out of himself, was enough.
Sylas became a streak of silvery-blue lightning, appearing beneath the Clypsian while he shot down toward the ground. Taking Vorthyx's back, he wrapped his arms around his neck and his legs around his hips.
Then he squeezed down.
Vorthyx's eyes widened as he found his head aimed right for the ground, the blood circulation to his brain being cut off at the same time.
It was too late to react.
BOOM!